Former Kaichi School Matsumoto

The Former Kaichi School in Matsumoto is one of the oldest and loveliest school buildings in Japan, a National Treasure raised in 1876 when the country was racing to modernise. Its architecture says everything about that moment: a Japanese carpenter’s loving, slightly freewheeling interpretation of Western style, crowned with an octagonal tower and guarded by carved dragons.

A classroom of the Meiji era

The building is the finest surviving example of giyofu architecture, the pseudo Western style local builders created from pattern books and glimpses of foreign buildings, mixing plaster, stained glass and Japanese joinery with cheerful confidence. Inside, restored classrooms and exhibits trace early modern education: the desks, textbooks and school life of children who were the first generation to attend compulsory school. It is as much a museum of national ambition as of education.

Pair it with the castle

The school stands a short walk north of Matsumoto Castle, whose black keep is one of Japan’s original twelve and its most striking. Together with the old merchant streets of Nakamachi, they make Matsumoto an outstanding overnight stop on the way to the Alps or Takayama.

Getting there

Matsumoto is around two and a half hours from Shinjuku by the Azusa limited express. From Matsumoto Station, walk twenty five minutes through town via the castle, or take the local Town Sneaker loop bus that serves the sightseeing quarter.

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